Crown Prince Party

Crown Prince Party
Traditional Chinese	太子黨
Simplified Chinese	太子党
Transcriptions Mandarin - Hanyu Pinyin Tàizǐdǎng - Wade–Giles T'aitsutang

In modern usage, the Crown Prince Party, or The Princelings, refers to the descendants of prominent and influential senior communist officials in the People's Republic of China. It is not a political party, but an informal, and often derogatory, categorization to signify those benefiting from nepotism and cronyism, by analogy with Crown Princes in hereditary monarchies. Many of its members now hold high-level political and business positions in the upper echelons of power. However, there is currently no discernible political cohesion within the group, and as such they should not be compared to other informal groupings such as the Shanghai clique or the Tsinghua clique, which resemble inner-party factions.

The term was coined in the early 20th century, referring to the son of Yuan Shikai (a self-declared Emperor) and his cronies. It was later used to describe the relatives of the top four nationalist families; Chiang Kai-shek's kin, Soong May-ling's kin, Chen Lifu's kin, and Kong Xiangxi's kin. After the 1950s, the term was used to describe Chiang Ching-kuo, son of Chiang Kai-shek, and his friends in Taiwan.

History

The latest "crown princes" are in mainland China. Many senior leaders often lobby directly or indirectly for their descendants and relatives to succeed them. Although some manage to keep a low profile, many of them are perceived to be arrogant and undeserving of the fortune or the prominence they hold. By utilizing their parents' privileges, they often place themselves above the law and foster the contagion of corruption. Some of these crown princes hold senior positions at the vice-ministerial level or above in their thirties, for which other ordinary cadres would struggle for decades. Others run companies involved in large scale corruption and smuggling schemes. All of these misdeeds raised widespread sentiments of resentment and jealousy, and some "crown princes" have fallen victim to the trend of enmity that is apparent in China. Most political observers see the Crown Prince Party as having been at their pinnacle of power in the 1980s and had their power reduced after 1989 by a number of factors:

First, not only did the Crown Prince Party cause some resentment among the general public, but they also caused resentment within the vast major of Party members who did not have a powerful relative; for example, Chen Yuan, son of Chen Yun; and Chen Haosu, son of Chen Yi lost their election in Beijing and had to be transferred to other positions.

Second, the booming Chinese economy caused a new wealthy class to emerge, many of whom demanded fair play and protection of their properties.

Third, as the public was unsatisfied with the plague of corruption and cronyism, with the resentment and discontent mounting to a degree that could wreak havoc on the CCP's reign, the CCP had to take some measures to appease these strong feelings.

One watershed event occurred during the 15th National Congress of the CCP in 1997. Some prominent figures of the Crown Prince Party suffered great losses as candidates. Xi Jinping (习近平), son of Xi Zhongxun (习仲勋), and Deng Pufang, eldest son of Deng Xiaoping, were narrowly elected as alternate members of the Central Commission of the CCP, but were listed on the tailend due to the low number of votes received. Bo Xilai, son of Bo Yibo, was unable to get elected as an alternate member. Interestingly, both Xi and Bo have emerged as major figures in China's next generation of leadership. Indeed, Xi is widely considered to have been tapped to succeed Hu Jintao as General Secretary of the CPC and President of the PRC at the 18th Party Congress in 2012.

It is speculated that when Jiang Zemin was close to the end of his term for his age, however, he put many members of the Crown Prince Party into important positions to appeal to senior leaders of the CCP as a way to win their support for continuation of his influence. There is a trend of members of Crown Prince Party taking over power step by step. Of these, Yu Zhengsheng, son of Huang Jing (黄敬), former mayor of Tianjin, was already a member of the powerful politburo of the CCP; Wang Qishan (王歧山 in Chinese), son in law of Yao Yilin (姚依林, former vice premier and member of politburo), mayor of Beijing; Xi Jinping, Bo Xilai, Zhou Xiaochuan, son of Zhou Jiannan (周建南, former minister of First Machinery Ministry and Jiang Zemin’s boss), governor of the People's Bank of China, have also occupied important positions since the 17th Party Congress.

Examples

The following are some of the most famous crown princes:

• Son and daughters of Deng Xiaoping: Deng Pufang (邓朴方), chairman of the Handicapped Association; Deng Nan (邓楠), former vice minister Science and Technology
• Son of Chen Yun: Chen Yuan (陈元), governor of the State Development Bank of China
• Son of Bo Yibo: Bo Xilai (薄熙来), secretary of the CCP of Chongqing
• Son of Xi Zhongxun: Xi Jinping (习近平), Vice President
• Son of Zeng Shan (曾山, former interior minister of CCP): Zeng Qinghong, former Vice-President of China
• Son of Huang Jing: Yu Zhengsheng (俞正声), secretary of the CCP of Shanghai, member of the politburo
• Son in law of Yao Yilin: Wang Qishan, Executive Vice Premier
• Son and daughter of Li Peng (as son of a martyr and adopted by Zhou Enlai, a member of Crown Prince Party, too): Li Xiaopeng (李小鹏), chairman of Huaneng Power Group; Li Xiaolin (李小琳), president of China Power International.
• Sons of Jiang Zemin: Jiang Mianheng (江绵恒), vice dean of the Chinese Academy of Science, director of several major SOEs such as Shanghai Auto, and the real controller of China Netcom; Jiang Miankang (江绵康), a major general of the PLA
• Son of Wang Zhen, Wang Jun (王军) chairman of CITIC; Wang Zhi (王之), former chairman of Great Wall Group
• Son of Liu Shaoqi: Liu Yuan (刘源), lieutenant general of the military police
• Son of He Long, He Pengfei (贺鹏飞), vice commander of the Chinese Navy, lieutenant general
• Former son-in-law of Liu Huaqing (刘华清): Pan Yue (潘岳), vice director of the State Environmental Protection Administration
• Son of Chen Yi: Chen Haosu (陈昊苏), former vice minister of the Ministry of Culture
• Son of Li Gang: Li Qiming (李启铭). Li Qiming became involved in the Li Gang incident after he killed a female university student in a hit-and-run accident. Li became famous after he expressed surprise that anyone would dare to arrest him, claiming: "My father is Li Gang!"

In a publication, 226 crown princes were listed (see link below).

External links

• 中共太子党名单及任职一览表 (2004版) (A list of names of "Crown Princes").
• China's former 'first family' about the children of Deng Xiaoping
• The Princelings John Garnaut October 2, 2010